The invention relates to shopping carts and more specifically to a system designed to allow search teams to detect and recover stolen or misplaced shopping carts.
Presently grocery stores and other stores having shopping carts are experiencing a substantial monetary loss due to stolen and misplaced shopping carts. Most of these carts are taken by patrons who use them as a convenience in carting their merchandise to their homes. Many times these carts are then discarded or left at a distant location from the store. Some stores send employees out to retrieve shopping carts if someone telephones giving the location of their shopping carts. Some stores pay a reward for abandoned or misplaced shopping carts that are returned to their store. The ultimate loser, is the consumer since the price of his groceries or goods are increased to cover the cost of replacing the lost carts.
An additional problem that exists relates to organized theft rings that may steal as many as a hunhdred or more shopping carts at a time. These theft rings then sell the stolen carts to independent markets for appoximately $50.00 each.
It is an object of the invention to provide a novel shopping cart retrieval system that will allow the store to easily find shopping carts that have been taken from their premises.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novel shopping cart retrieval system that would require minimal changes to existing shopping cart structure.
It is an additional object of the invention to provide a novel shopping cart retrieval system that is economical to manufacture and market.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a novel shopping cart retrieval system that can be supplied as OEM equipment or it can be retrofit to existing shopping carts.